Superlatives!

Wow, I can’t begin to tell you how much I despise superlatives.

The rush to declare stuff “the best!” or “the most $x” or whatever has completely made our language devoid of non-superlative comparisons. If I tell you that you’re a good student, or a good person, society has trained you to ask yourself, “Why did Geof use good and not great? Why am I not great?! My mom thinks I’m great!” Anytime that we limit ourselves to acey-deucey, onesie-twosie comparisons, we make binary choices in what is quite clearly a greater-than-binary decision set.

GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

[This is what I get for running a Web forum. Every other discussion seems to be, "What's the best $X?" "What's the coolest $y?" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!]